


Lie to me

by pamymex3girl



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Pre Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:49:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19888102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pamymex3girl/pseuds/pamymex3girl
Summary: Sometimes Keith wishes he could go back in time. Just turn the clock around and go back to when she was still an innoncent little girl.Back to when he did not need to lie, back to the time she did not ask him to.





	Lie to me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm moving some of my fanfictions from fanfiction.net to AO3. This one was originally written in 2010, though I have gone over it again. 
> 
> Based on a prompt. Veronica & Keith Lie to me.   
> It remined me of a BTVS episode and the quotes in italics are from the season two episode of Buffy 'Lie to me.'

_‘Nothing’s ever simple anymore. I’m constantly trying to work it out. Who to love or hate. Who to trust. It’s just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get.’_

_‘I believe that’s called growing up.’_

_‘I’d like to stop then, okay?’_

\--

Keith remembers a time when everything was easier, simple.

All parents lie to their children, at some point in their lives, mostly when they are young. But back then, somehow, it’s still okay. It doesn’t make much sense, but then nothing in life really does and maybe it shouldn’t make sense. They’re not exactly lies, more like an attempt to protect small children from the horrors of the real world, an attempt to keep them innocent and naïve for as long as they possibly can. The lies are eventually exposed yet not child ever says anything about it.

Because back then it was all okay.

It mostly came from stories, fairy tales, in which good always – no matter what – won over evil. Stories of princes that saved princesses, stories of magic. Keith sat next to his daughter and those stories that always ended in the same place. A happy ending. And she had looked at him, with big innocent eyes and had asked him if fairy tales came true. And he had told her then – and he had even believed it – that they did, that someday a prince would come that would love her and protect her and save her from every danger there ever would eb.

He had looked at her and told her she was his little princess after all.

\--

All stories fade and so do the lies.

All children grow up, Veronica is no different, even if he does not want her to. No father wants to watch his little innocent girl grow into a women that attracts the attention of guys. He supposes Duncan isn’t that bad – he’d never hurt his daughter, especially not after Keith scared him half to death. He believed his daughter deserved to be loved for who she was and Duncan did.

But life is not a fairy tale and some people won’t get a happy ending.

He’d always this to be truth – in stories princes and princess never turn out to be secretly related. He found Veronica crying in bed after Duncan broke up with her an though he wanted to he could not bring himself to hate the boy. He does hate jake and Leanne though. He holds her as she cries and promise her that it will all be okay, that this too will pass.

He’d held her and he’d lied and she’d still believed him.

Maybe lying was still easy at this point.

\--

And then Lilly dies and the whole world goes to hell.

Nothing is the same after that – not that he expected it would be. He promised Veronica he would find out who did it (Lie), that everything would be alright (Lie), that somehow he would fix things (Lie.) She hadn’t called him on all the lies, perhaps she didn’t have the energy but mostly he thinks Veronica wanted to believe in what he told her. Sometimes she looks at him, preparing to ask something and he can see the pain in her eyes.

He swears he hears her scream at him: _Lie to me, Lie to me, Lie to me._

And lie he does.

-

Time goes on as he knew it would.

Somewhere along the way the lies became a part of their lives. Still, he’ll never forget the day he found out his daughter lied to him. Lied about what was going on in school and he’d wanted to scream at her: lying is wrong, always tell me everything that is going on. Except there was that voice, that small voice calling him a hypocrite. So he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even tell her he knows she lied. He just lets her lie to him and he keeps lying to her as well.

The lies have become a part of them.

Then suddenly she cuts her hair and never tells him the truth again. She doesn’t look him in the eye and he sees the symptoms but he doesn’t really want to know. So he lies to himself and ignores them and he knows that’s probably the worst things he has ever done.

\--

_‘Does it ever get easy?’_

_‘You mean life?’_

_\--_

Someone up there must really hate them because life becomes harder.

The lies grow between them and later Keith thinks that he never truly knows his daughter again. But then again, which parent truly knows his children? He can see how much all the gossip hurts her, even though she tries to hide it behind a hardened look. He knows because sometimes he hears her cry in her room, holding onto stuff that Lily had once given her, sometimes she screams Lilly’s name in her dreams.

He never goes into her room to comfort her.

Mainly because he doesn’t know how. But also he knows this is all his fault. It’s his fault she has to hide behind the tough Veronica and cry alone in her room. His fault her friends turned on her, his fault her mother left. If he had never accused Jake Kane none of this would have happened and Veronica would at least have her friends, she would not be going through her grief alone.

So he doesn’t comfort her and tells himself she doesn’t need him.

Lies.

\--

_‘Yeah. Does it ever get easy?’_

_‘What do you want me to say?’_

_‘Lie to me.’_

_\--_

She leans on him even though he doesn’t think she should.

Despite all that has happened she loves him, trusts him and sometimes he wonders why. He would never have held it against her if she’d sided with the Kane’s. After all Lilly was her best friend, she’d spend so much time at their house, she must have gotten to know Jake Kane. But Keith knew things about Jake and Leanne that Veronica didn’t, things he doesn’t want her to know. She knows need to know she gave up everything for a man that might not be her father.

And still sometimes he sees it in her eyes.   


She asks questions about Lilly, about her mom. And Keith knows, he does, that she deserves to know all the answers, that she needs them, but he doesn’t want her to know. Sometimes he sees it in her eyes, there are things she doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to hear.

Sometimes she asks him questions.

But he swears he hears her scream: _Lie to me, Lie to me, Lie to me._

So Lie he does.

\--

_‘yes, it’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their point horns and black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and everyone lives happily ever after.’_

_\--_

Sometimes Keith wishes he could go back.

Turn the clock back and go back to when Veronica was still that innocent little girl. Back to when those fairy tales where still important, to when they were real. To the time she believed in magic, to when the lies were not yet lies, back in time when lies were truth. When she looked at him with big innocent eyes and asked him questions about happy endings.

To that time when everything was still possible, back when everything was still truth.

To the time when he did not lie, to the time she did not ask him to.

Back to the time it was still easy.

\--

_‘Liar.’_


End file.
